Due to the recent passing of Juraj Meliš we have decided to present the visitors of the Virtual Gallery with his work that is a part of the Nitra Gallery collection...

Inventory No. –P-451

Artist: Juraj Meliš
Title: Idea „B“

Year: 1976-1978
Technique: combined
Material: combined
Dimensions: 55cmx15cmx19cm
Signature: back side : Idea „B“, Meliš, pencil, hand-written

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Due to the recent passing of Juraj Meliš we have decided to present the visitors of the Virtual Gallery with his work that is a part of the Nitra Gallery collection. The piece is a part of the IDEA cycle. The sculptor’s work comprises both humanism and political agendas. The IDEA cycle (IDEA “A” and IDEA “B”) is the author’s response to 1968 and the invasion of our country by the armies of the Warsaw Pact and the events that destroyed the society’s intellectual plurality of opinions and the related discourse. (Up until today, the 1960s before the invasion are considered the golden age of the current domestic art scene.) Cruel communist tools such as restricted freedom of opinion, freedom of movement, paranoid fear of being stalked, snitching, general lack of social freedom…this is what Juraj Meliš responses to in this cycle. He visualises the dignity of our existence – he visualises an idea. The word IDEA is formed using a metal wire which is nailed to a wooden “body” of the object.

Juraj Meliš studied at AFAD in 1966 under the leadership of prof. Jozef Kostka. His first solo exhibition was held at the Youth Gallery in Bratislava in 1970. A unique intermedia scope of the artist, whose main theme was the individual and his position in the society (often self-related – a motive of his own face – a death mask), represents a unique chapter of the unofficial art scene.

Juraj Meliš was born 13 July 1948 in Nové Zámky. Between 1960-1966 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (prof. Jozef Kostka), where he started teaching in 1990. Between 1999-2002 he led the Department of Sculpture and in 1992 he was awarded the degree of Professor. He taught many influential personalities of the national art scene during his career at AFAD. On 22 November 2016 Juraj Meliš lost a difficult struggle with a decease in Skalica.

Ľudmila Kasaj Poláčková

Ľudmila Kasaj Poláčková

This acquisition has been supported using public funds provided by the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic.